Nigel Farage ‘to form new political party after Tory disaster’ to continue Brexit fight

Thomas Mackie — Express.co.uk Sept 24, 2017

Former UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage. Click to enlarge“We must shut the gates to mass migration.”

BREXIT champion Nigel Farage is planning to announce a new political party to oppose Theresa May if an anti-Islam campaigner wins the Ukip leadership this week, it has been reported.

It comes as Mr Farage blasted Theresa May’s Florence speech, claiming the two-year delay was a Tory plot to win the next General Election.

The former Ukip leader, who stepped down following last year’s EU referendum, has reportedly told his friends that he will form a breakaway party if favourite Anne Marie Waters wins the party leadership election.

Mr Farage reportedly warned friends that Ukip would be “finished” if it became anti-Islam.

Earlier Ms Waters had claimed “millions” of Britons agreed with her view that Islam was “evil”.

It is understood the MEP could create the new movement within days of Ukip’s latest leadership contest at the party conference in Torquay on Friday.

According to sources, the former Ukip leader has booked a room in Strasbourg for the following Monday when he is expected to announce the formal launch of his new breakaway party.

Almost all of Ukip’s 20 MEPs are likely to follow Mr Farage if Ms Waters is successful, insiders told The Mail on Sunday.

According to the newspaper, Mr Farage said: “The party would be ‘finished’ if it became an anti-Islamic party.”

Following the Prime Minister’s Brexit speech delaying our EU withdrawal until 2021, which Mr Farage described as “sticking two fingers up to the millions of people who voted for Brexit”, he has told friends that he is ready to launch his new movement.

The right-wing MEP hopes to use the next 18 months to protest against Theresa May’s attempt to try to keep the UK in the EU by ‘the back door’.

Former Ukip donor Arron Banks, 51, said Ms Waters would give the party a “decent burial” if she became leader.

The businessman said he feared the Ukip frontrunner would turn the party into “BNP lite” and her leadership of the party would “put the final nail in its coffin.

The country needs an effective political movement to stop May from selling out on the Brexit which British people voted for last year.”

Mr Farage would also use the new party as an opportunity to shed his old enemies in Ukip, such as the former Tory Mp Neil Hamilton.

His successor, Paul Nuttall, lasted just six months as leader following a disastrous General Election in which it won 1.8 percent of the UK vote.

The director of Sharia Watch, Ms Waters, has made a series of controversial remarks about Islam, saying: “We ought to be able in this country to say whatever we like about a religion and the problem we have got is that we pussyfoot around, we spend so much time agonising over not saying the wrong thing, and this is what’s putting the public off.

“But this is how millions of people in this country feel and they are waiting for someone to articulate it for them.”

This all comes after Boris Johnson took credit for Theresa May’s Brexit speech, saying Britain would have ended up in the EU until 2024 if he hadn’t taken on the remainers in the Cabinet.

Sources close to the Foreign Secretary claimed Chancellor Philip Hammond had been pushing for a five-year transition period.

But thanks to Mr Johnson’s intervention, we will leave the European Union as planned in 2019 while remaining in the single market and customs union for a further two years to avoid a “cliff edge” exit.